New early warning system finds previously unknown exotic insect in Massachusetts

Durham , NH —A new early warning system recently implemented to detect invasive species appears to be working out fine; it just detected a previously unknown exotic insect to North America .

The discovery in Massachusetts this spring was a somewhat surprising one in the insect-watching scientific community throughout southern New England . The researchers had been monitoring for exotic bark beetles. In their lingo, though, the word ‘exotic’ means anything not from the local ecosystem, so a beetle from California could be considered exotic here in New England . What they found though was a new species, not just to Massachusetts , but also to North America .

Describing himself as just one of many people who work on the front line of the early detection program, Charlie Burnham said he is excited about the discovery. The Mass. Dept. of Conservation and Recreation Forest Health Program supervisor said, “This proves the system works. We found it early. We identified it quickly. And if this had turned out to be a particularly harmful insect this program would have put us in a far better position to deal with it.” Burnham added that it is much easier to control an insect when its population measures in the hundreds instead of the millions.

One of Burnham’s collaborators, Kevin Dodds, an entomologist with the USDA Forest Service, agreed. “There are some species of bark beetle out there that you definitely do not want to get into North America . They could cause widespread ecological and economic damage to the region. Bark beetles can kill trees from the inside, or they can carry and transfer diseases such as Dutch elm disease. They can cause the loss of specific tree species and change the forest stand structure and influence wildlife habitat.” He added that the hemlock wooly adelgid, emerald ash borer and Asian longhorn beetle are just a few examples of invasive insect species that could cause widespread damage to forests and ecosystems across the nation.

“Since this species is so new to the area, it’s too early to predict how it will behave in local forests,” said Dodds. The insect in question, the Xyleborus seriatus, is a native to Asia . No one knows how or when the species arrived on this continent. There is currently no common name for the beetle. Burnham said there is no need for a name yet because so few people know about it. Someday, though, they might call it the Southboro beetle, after the community they found it in, he said.

The USDA Forest Service gave a $15,000 forest health grant to the State of Massachusetts earlier this year to conduct this first early warning exotic species system test in New England . Dodds, working out of the Forest Service’s Durham , N.H. , field office, said he works routinely with state agencies throughout New England and New York to locate, identify and control invasive insect populations. Invasive species is one of the top four threats facing America ’s forests today, he said.

Burnham said the states have been conducting insect survey and control programs for decades to help monitor and control harmful insect populations. They work closely with the USDA Forest Service, the Animal Plant Health & Inspection Service, Cornell University and state agricultural agencies to monitor invasive insects. In the forest health program members will bait and set out the traps several times a year in areas that are likely to have certain exotic insects. The location might include species of trees that certain types of insects like to eat. The traps are baited with a specific pheromone that is known to attract one or more species of insects. According to Burnham, the trap consists of a series of funnels, about 12 altogether. At the bottom of the series of funnels is a cup with a thin film of antifreeze in the base that kills the specimens. “It doesn’t evaporate and it preserves the bugs pretty well,” he said.

Forest health personnel usually return to the site a couple weeks later to remove the collected insects from the cup and return them to their lab. Beetle specimens are then separated and routinely forwarded to taxonomists at Cornell University in New York or elsewhere for later identification. Identifying a particular species, especially an exotic one among thousands of species can be a lengthy, tricky and challenging business, though, he added. There are more than 6,000 species of bark beetle worldwide today, and the process of identifying an unusual specimen can sometimes take up to months to complete, he said.

In this test the insects were trapped in April, pre-screened in May and positively identified by Cornell University Taxonomist Richard Hoebeke just over a week ago. Hoebeke announced the finding to his colleagues in an e-mail dated July 20 – months earlier than would be typically expected for a typical determination.

What made the early warning system this time an innovation from the normal process was not the use of hi-tech gadgetry or nanotechnology. Instead, simply training field members in taxonomy made the big difference. That way they only needed to send a few unusual specimens off for identification at the university instead of sending hundreds or thousands. Now, said Dodds “We can use pre-screeners to initially sort through trap catches and then send to the experts anything they can’t ID or recognize. That will really speed up the process and allow the program to expand.”